shut up and go to sleep
by zoeythara
Summary: Nate x Russell from walking dead 400 days. takes place at the end of the story after Nate shoots the two old people.
1. Chapter 1

"So what Russell, should we just kill these people and take all their stuff?" Nate twirled his gun in the air as the all too familiar words rolled off his lips, an expression of pure insanity spreading across his face, weather the look was faked on his part or not I couldn't tell.

Of course I knew Nate had intentionally brought up the part of my past that I'd shared with him to make fun of it, being a joke in his eyes, but even so I froze up as he said it. Nate's eyes fell back on me and I realized he really expected an answer from me.

"Uhhh.." Nate fired, his shot ringing out through the air, a scream from the old woman and a second shot following.

I jumped in disbelief, staring wide eyed at the blood now pooling out from the old couple's lifeless bodies. I didn't realize when Nate moved across the floor to the other side of the diner.

"Woah, look at all this shit, worth dodging' a couple bullets eh, Russell?" I turned to Nate, sure my face was wrinkled in terror because Nate's eyes softened.

"It's okay Russ, you're my boy now. Every thing's going to be a 'okay."

After another moment Nate turned and walked out the kitchen doors we came from.

"Stay here Russ, I'm gonna go make sure there aren't any of the dead roaming around."

I watched him leave before flopping down on one of the chairs behind me. Dragging my hand down my face, I tried to figure out why I was so upset. I didn't know those people why should I care if they died? Nate picked me up off the side of the road where I probably would have died otherwise, he saved my life. The only thing these people ever did was try to put a bullet in my head. So why do I care so much?

I shook my head and stood up, deciding to look for supplies and such while I waited for Nate to get back. It was another five minutes or so before he walked back in. He was holding what looked to be some kind of tool for a car.

"You're all good now Russ? Hate to see you crying like a pussy." He smirked.

My eyes narrowed.

"I wasn't crying, and it ain't cool that you were making fun of what I've seen. You don't do something like that man." Nate pated my shoulder a few times playfully.

"Sorry sorry, let's move on from that, agreed? I'll never do it again if you stop being pissed at me." My eyes scanned over his face a moment before saying,

"Fine."

"Good." My eyes fell back down to what he was holding.

"What's that?" I nodded to it with my chin.

"Oh this?" Nate held it up to about eye height.

"Found it while I was looking around, we need it to replace the tires that ass hole shot out, luckily there's plenty of good cars around. We can take the tires off of some in the morning."

"The morning?!" my eyes instantly darted back to the dead couple by the window, Nate's eyes followed mine.

"Oh right. We should probably take care of those." He walked towards the pair, setting his tool down on one of the tables he passed.

"Come here, Russ and give me a hand." I hesitated a moment before walking over.

With a bit of effort, we managed to move the bodies and dumped them a ways off from the building. As much of a pain as It was to drag them so far, I knew Nate was probably right when he said they would attract the dead, and we really didn't need walkers around the already defenseless dinner we would be sleeping in tonight.

I walked around the kitchen rooting through drawers and shelves, pulling out anything that could be useful to us that I hadn't gotten to earlier. I found a towel in one of the drawers and wiped my hands off with it. Even though there wasn't really anything on them, it still make me feel cleaner rubbing the cloth over my skin.

"Nate!" I called.

"I got most everything out of the drawers."

"Great." I jumped as Nate literally popped his head in the room.

"Come here, I found a place we can sleep." Nate waited for me to catch up before walking again.

He lead me to a room in the center of the dinner that was filled with shelves which at one time must have held boxes of food, plates and cleaning supplies for the dinner. On the back was a metal door to what looked to be a freezer. Lying in the middle of the room was an old mattress with a thin sheet for covers.

"Looks like this was where they slept." Nate moved forward and sat on the edge of the mattress and began unlacing his boots. I stared at him for a second, not saying anything until he brought his gaze up and meant mine.

"What?"

"Are you saying we're sleeping in the same bed?"

"Yeah why not?" Nate smirked and stood up, walking over to me. Putting his hand on my shoulder he gave it a soft squeeze.

"Come on Russ I can't let my boy sleep on the cold floor now can I? That wouldn't be right." I felt his grip tighten on my shoulder as he pulled me down towards the mattress.

"Better get some shut eye. Gonna be a long day tomorrow if you don't, and I sure as hell ain't watching your sorry ass stumble around all day just because you didn't sleep." He pushed me down so I was sitting on the corner of the bed. I looked up at him, a little nervous of what he might do.

"Nate I-I…" I started, but I didn't really have anything to say. He smiled down at me before moving back over to his side of the bed.

"What are you afraid of the boogey man Russ? Just shut up and go to sleep."


	2. Chapter 2

**AN~ thanks so much for all the lovely reviews my dears ^3^. I'm surprised that so many people ship this it's awesome :D just glad all of you like it so far ^^**

"Rise and shine Russ my boy! We got us a big day planned!" My eyes shot open as I bolted up right at the voice.

"Woah~ a little jumpy there aren't we?" Nate chuckled, taking a few steps back from the mattress. I sighed, quickly calming down after I realized it was just Nate. I'd been so on edge last night I barely slept. The whole time I was expecting a walker to burst through the door, or some looters to come by and kill us. It didn't really help that I don't quite trust Nate yet either.

"I'd love to let you sleep all day Russ really, but I need your help." I threw the thin blanket back and grabbed my shoes from beside the bed.

"Yeah what do ya need?" I asked, looking up at Nate as I tied my shoes. He appeared to have been up for a while now.

"The tires." Nate said like it should have been beyond obvious.

"Come on." He turned and nodded to me. After a moment I'd finished with my shoes and was following Nate out to the diner to the parking lot.

"I've found some tires, and parts that we can salvage, just need some help getting them off." He tossed me the tire iron from before and helped me loosen the bolts for the car. After a few minutes, Nate looked over at me.

"It's probably not a bad idea to strip these cars of any working parts, we might need them later. Or we could trade them if it comes to that."

"Probably not a bad idea." I repeated. I thought over his sentence for a moment.

'He's talking about the future like we're going to be together for a long time.' I rolled the thought over in my head, and finally decided to ask him about it.

"Nate." He glanced over to me, then back down at the hood of the car.

"You're still taking me to my gram's, right?" the corners of Nate's lips turned down, but he offered no reply to my question.

"Well didn't you say that's what you'd do?" his head shot up from the car and he whipped around to face me, slamming the wrench down as he did.

"Russell you know your Gram's dead right!?" I jumped a little at his sudden outburst. I hesitated a moment before continuing, not wanting to set him off.

"You don't know that and even if she is that's where you said you would take me, we had a deal."

"We HAD a deal!" his face softened a bit before he continued.

"Russell I let you go out there and you'll be eaten alive! You're beyond lucky that you hadn't already been walking that road before I found you!" I saw the fury growing in his eyes again and I took a step back. I wasn't sure what he'd do if he got pissed. Not wanting to find out, I decided it would be best to drop the subject for right now, I needed him to cool off.

"Nate it's fine, we can talk about this later alright man-" I was cut off.

"There's nothing to talk about!" he growled, taking steps towards me.

"Russell man, look at me. We can drive by the house if you really want, but there's not going to be anything but the dead there."

I didn't say anything in reply, not wanting to get him riled up again.

"Right, well let's just finish up on these cars, we shouldn't be out in the open for too long." A smirk found its way back on his face, and he chuckled a bit.

"That 'a boy, keeping your head in the game I like it." He patted my shoulder before going back to work.

In another hour or so we'd replaced the tires, filled them with a hand pump (which was literal hell might I add) loaded the parts, and supplies we'd found into the back on the truck, and not too long after we were once again driving.

Nate had decided to play some music again, unfortunately he only had two CDs in his truck so it was just the same ten songs on loop the entire time.

After we'd been driving for a while I decided to bring up my Gram's house again.

"Nate, I uh-?"

"If you're asking about your Gram's, don't." looking over at him I found a scowl etched into his face. He was angry, but I realized it wasn't directed at me.

"Can't we just look?"

"No Russell are you trying to get us both killed?! That house is probably swarming with Geeks by now."

"It's a farm house. No one's around for miles how coul-"

"Russell I don't know what the hell you were doing in that little group of yours that you didn't realize this, but the entire goddamn planet is swarming with the dead now there's no place untouched!"

"You think I don't know that?! And that has nothing to do with this just drop me off-"

"Shut up Russell! We're done talking okay done!" I flinched slightly, my eyes scanning over his face. We sat in silence for a moment, before I decided to speak again.

"Why do you care so much?" Nate's gaze remained focused forward, not even acknowledging my question. I huffed softly, realizing it was useless to argue and turned to the window.

"I can't…" I turned as Nate started to speak again.

"I just can't risk losing you too."

**AN~**

**okay so I need to ask something. what do you want me to do with this story now, if anything. do you want me to just write a bunch of one shots, do you want me to continue from here, or maybe just do one more part and have it be a bunch of different short stories? or what. / i'm not sure what you want D:**

_**((it's like 4 in the morning my brain is doing weird things))**_


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